Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The dyssocial sex

A recent study by the well-known Professor Robert Dunbar has shown ‘a very striking sex difference between male and female friendships.’ In the few days since Dunbar gave a talk on the results, a number of articles have written of the superficiality of male relationships; rather, they focused on Dunbar’s view that ‘women clearly have much more intense close friendships…very like romantic relationships…if they break, they break catastrophically.’ Whereas men are painted as superficial – ‘With guys it is out of sight out of mind. They just find four more guys to go drinking with.’ But, do the findings really indicate that women are friendlier or more sociable than men?

Now, of course, feminists will tell you that masculinity is inevitably oppressive and abusive, especially of the more supposedly feminine qualities of love, gentility and empathy. But, this misconception is totally unfair. As Moore and Gillette point out, in King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, oppressive forms of patriarchy are simply based on the same juvenile fear of Lord of the Flies; the ‘mature masculine’ psychology, however, is ‘marked by calm, compassion, clarity of vision, and generativity.’

Indeed, science seems to agree, not only that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but also that women seem predisposed to scorning.

I noticed a long time ago that while I still have pretty much the same friends that I did in high school, virtually no woman I knew hadn't changed out her entire set of friends more than once. There are exceptions, of course, but it does seem strange that the supposedly social sex tends to be less inclined to maintain lasting friendships.

26 comments:

My experience says the opposite. Women have much more superficial friendships, men have deeper, longer and more intense friendships. What is different is the level of daily engagement. I can go years without speaking to a friend, and pick right up where we left off when we reconnect. Women talk to each other constantly, but it's all surface fluff. Men have a depth of connection that does not require constant chatter. Women mistake quantity of communication for quality.

It's enlightening to ask married women who their maid of honor was. Unless it was a family member, if the wedding was more than 3 years ago, they will no longer even be friends with this honored maid. Which explains a lot about divorce statistics: if you can't even pick a decade-long friend, how can you pick a lifelong mate?

This is a pernicious myth, akin to civic nationalism. Women are far less capable of maintaining deep long-lasting friendships that men have. They are easily slighted and not so forgiving. I've seen my wife burn many friendships over issues that wouldn't phase me a bit. Women also like to give advice to their friends, but are not so good at receiving the same. On the other hand, I've had friends call me out on my shortcomings many times. Whether or not I accept the rebuke, it is always well-meant and well-received.

I had one (((friend))) who was so offended by my return to my roots that he did end our friendship of many years over it. But you know what? He was always a bit of a jerk to me anyway.

But my old college buddies, who I haven't seen for years, decades even? Like Tarrou said, we could (and have, once or twice) get together and resume right where we left off. It's a thing of beauty.

My ex-wife is certainly one of the exceptions. At 64, she still has four friends she's known since kindergarten. She gets together with them sometimes even though they live more than a hundred miles from her. And her boyfriend is a guy who was her best friend from her teens through her early thirties. (They didn't date or hook up til four years ago.)

Hmmm... Now this is interesting to learn... I always seem to think women had longer-lasting friendships with each other more than men.

Perhaps not as "in-depth" and "meaningful" as some friendships are with men of close lifelong friends; but I always thought women were "better friends to each other" in some ways over men; despite the social "female nature" of things AKA "solipsism" and "hypergamy".

Yeah, this study, I can agree with... Thanks for sharing Mr. Vox. Amen.

All this stuff about deep friendships baffles me. Time is the most finite of all our possessions, and we don't know how much of it we get. How we spend our time is the defining aspect of who we are. I choose to spend my time with my wife and family. No one else comes even close.

A bit OT but I've been having a blast alpha posing around the young women at work. It's all I can do to no start cracking up and LMAO as I watch their reactions and the obvious hamster spinning in their lil' female heads.

Playfully called one a bitch, got lectured about how offensive it was, and then received lots of flirtatious smiles and attention afterwords.

This myth is also often pushed as a reason to have more women in "important" positions: "They get along better and are more willing to compromise!"

Never mind that "compromising" so everyone "gets along" is absurd on its face and absolutely disastrous for representative government, it's simply not true: any real conflicts just gets subsumed into a emotionally-charged, passive-aggressive secret war, a war all the more dangerous because a lot of people don't even realize it's happening, much less that they're involved in it.

I have always gotten along better with men than women. I do have a couple of good girl friends but they're a lot like me- somewhat Asperger-like in that we're pretty straightforward. I don't do well with feminine manipulations. Maybe because I grew up with 3 brothers and no sisters?

It is a myth that woman are only social because woman the ones most needing social network .. there is one network that men need more and it is called "blood brothers" - people you literally depend your life upon